U.K. Politician Arrested for 'Glib' Twitter Threats

A Tory city council member in the U.K. city of Birmingham has been arrested by local police for comments he posted to his (now-removed)
Twitter feed. Councilman Gareth Compton, apparently upset by the
newspaper columns written by British pundit Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, posted
to Twitter:

Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really.

Compton
was quickly arrested, suspended from the Conservative Party, and, worst
of all, compelled to delete his Twitter account. He defended himself
somewhat on Twitter and to The Guardian's Peter Walker and David Batty:

In
a statement released in a series of tweets, Compton said: "I did not
'call' for the stoning of anybody. I made an ill-conceived attempt at
humour in response to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown saying on Radio 5 Live this
morning that no politician had the right to comment on human rights
abuses, even the stoning of women in Iran. I apologise for any offence
caused. It was wholly unintentional."

... Compton said the message posted yesterday on his private Twitter account had been "a glib comment" in response to the writer's appearance on Nicky Campbell's Radio 5 Live breakfast show.

TechDirt's Mike Masnick,
noting the recent arrest of Paul Chambers for similarly borderline
Tweets, sighs, "Once again, this was a stupid thing to say, and it makes
Compton look
like a jackass. But should being a total jerk online be illegal? At
least in the UK, that seems to be the law now."

News reports are focusing on the Germanwings pilot's possible depression, following a familiar script in the wake of mass killings. But the evidence shows violence is extremely rare among the mentally ill.